Two weeks past both quickly and slowly. Although it seemed like hours when he was daydreaming in class or when he was sitting alone at lunch, before he knew it he had already smoked his first packet of ciggies his friends had bought for him, he knew the school inside and out and the places to cut class and even recognised some of his classmates. Every night Key would crawl into his bed and sleep with him until he had to get ready, and sneak out to his own house. It became routine and Taemin even had started to sleep on only one side of the bed.

But he still wasn’t comfortable. Or happy. And he still didn’t feel like making friends or pretending that he was happy or faking politeness. He didn’t like being alone, but he definitely preferred it to being with people. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He was sad that he didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he couldn’t change the way he felt. Everyone, apart from Key and Taeyeon, annoyed the hell out of him.

Which Jonghyun and Minho had to find out the hard way.

Taemin didn’t know why Key was friends with such numbskulls. Everything about those two made Taemin bristle. He hated the way Jonghyun always was bright and cheerful, hated how he flirted and looked at girls coyly if they were walking, hated the way he always sang underneath his breath. And Minho. Taemin hated the deep growl of his voice, hated his enthusiasm to be friends, hated how he had to be nice to everyone. Taemin thought this was so fake.

Nobody could be nice to everyone. Everyone had mean thoughts. Jonghyun and Minho were naiive idiots who tried to make out as if the world was all happy and sunshine and sparkles. He wished someone would just tell them the world was actually a horrible, dirty place where everyone was horrible and dirty as well. No one was nice on the inside. Even Jonghyun and Minho. He had heard them laughing at someone’s clothes or their dog. They had smiled to them a moment before, but when they passed, they would cackle. Taemin thought this just solidified the fact that everyone was rotten on the inside, and Jonghyun and Minho were fakes. He hated people who pretended that they were nice. It was lying and mean. Taemin wasn’t nice, and he didn’t try to hide it.

They were sitting in the park, Taemin on another “study period” with Key, Minho and Jonghyun. He had a lot of “study periods”.

“So Taemin, when are you gonna talk to us? We’ve been hanging out for weeks and I barely know you,” said Minho, smiling.

Minho liked the look of Taemin when he had first met him. Although he was quiet, Taemin was really cute in a little brother way and he wanted to be friends. He had never had a little brother. Jonghyun also didn’t have a little brother, and was really curious to know this good looking boy who Key was infatuated with.

“I don’t want to talk,” muttered Taemin, playing with the grass.

“Why not? We’re so fun,” joked Jonghyun.

“No you’re not,” said Taemin. He looked at his phone. Only three hours until he could go home.

“Yes we are,” said Jonghyun. “Close your eyes. We’ve got a surprise for you.”

He closed his eyes begrudgingly. He felt Jonghyun or Minho shuffle closer and do something near his face.

“Don’t Jonghyun- “ said Key in the background.

“Open!” sang Jonghyun. Taemin hoped he would get tonsillitis soon and lose his voice.

He opened his eyes.

And screamed.

Jonghyun was cupping a cricket near his face. He ing hated insects.

 He got up quickly, grabbing his bag and running. His heart sank when Jonghyun also rose up with a grin and started running after him.

“Give him a kiss!” said Jonghyun, laughing as Taemin ran.

Taemin’s heart was literally beating out his chest, he was so angry and unhappy. He hated insects, why couldn’t Jonghyun just stop chasing him and leave him alone?

He hadn’t run for a long time, and the painful breaths he had to take made his broken ribs sore, so he wasn’t looking where he was going. He felt his foot miss something and trip over the concrete.

Pain shot through his knees and palms as he fell, his bag tugging painfully in his shoulder. He couldn’t help gasping as he massaged his painful chest and his bandaged hand throbbed.

“Taemin, are you okay?” asked Jonghyun, running and crouching next to him, his hand on Taemin’s back. “Did you hurt something?”

Taemin was still staring at the concrete and panting as Key and Minho ran up too.

“Taemin, does your chest hurt?” asked Key. Taemin could hear the worry in his voice and was about to respond.

“You okay, little guy?” asked Minho tenderly.

Little. Guy. Tenderly. Taemin was ready to snap. Minho was so fake fake fake.

“Shut up!” he yelled at Minho. “Get your hand off me,” he shouted at Jonghyun, who instantly retracted his hand. “I ing hate you two. You are seriously the two most annoying guys I have ever met in my life. You’re both idiots. You’re both so ing fake it makes me sick. You pretend to be so ing nice when really you’re the most horrible people I have met. I can’t stand you two. I would rather hang out with no one then you two. Leave me the alone!” he yelled, before running out of the park toward his school.

He never wanted to see them again in his life.

“Taemin, I think you’re bleeding.”

Taemin was sitting in his English class. He looked blankly at Lee Sungsaenim, Mr. Lee, Onew, whatever his name was.

Onew sighed. “I think you’re bleeding,” he repeated in Korean. “Your knees and your hand.”

Taemin looked down at his knees and saw dark red stains on his jeans, as well as the bandage on his hand. He hoped his stitches hadn’t ripped or something. Knowing his luck, they did.

“You should go to the nurse,” said Onew, writing up a slip for him.

Taemin took it and limped out of class.

Except he didn’t go to the nurse. He limped out of the school building, looking up at the huge building. He knew which one was his English class, because he had spent every lesson looking out the window and knew exactly where it was. It was funny looking at it from another angle.

His knees hurt. His hand hurt. His chest hurt. Everything hurt. He was so angry that Jonghyun had did that to him. He was so angry that he is even in this situation, in this stupid school, in this country. He was so unhappy and angry. He needed to do something. Anything.

He picked up a rock from the ground. Back at Korea, he had seen in the kdramas his mother watched that the bad kids would throw rocks at windows and break them. He had never understood why, until now. He was so angry he wanted to break something. And he was a bad kid. He was hopeless now. He couldn’t even speak stupid English, he was no one here.

Using all his might in his good arm, he threw his arm back and aimed at the window he had spent hours staring out of.

He was pleasantly surprised when the rock actually reached the window and actually smashed it. The shatter was louder than he would imagine. And it cracked really badly too. There was a massive hole now.

The next few moments amused him. Students and teachers all popped their heads out of other windows to gawp at what had made the sound. He saw Onew’s head pop out from the cracked glass and look down, his expression horrified, which only intensified when he saw Taemin peering back up at him, blinking.

“Taemin, did you throw the rock at the window and break it?” asked the principal.

Taemin stared at his bloodied jeans. He wondered if Taeyeon would need to scrub the stains out, and whether he should do it himself.

“Taemin, did you throw the rock at the window and break it?” repeated Onew in Korean, who was sitting beside him in the principal’s office. He was here to translate. Taemin looked back up at him, blinking.

Onew thought he looked like a little boy who didn’t understand what he had done.

“My knee hurts,” said Taemin in Korean.

“Taemin, that wasn’t the question. We’ll do something about that a bit later,” said Onew.

“Yes.”

The principal sighed. “Ask him why,” said the principal.

“Why did you do it?” asked Onew.

Taemin shrugged. “Just felt like it.”

Onew told the principal, who sighed again. “Tell him we’re going to call his guardian.”

Taemin sat on the nurses’ chair while Onew watched the nurse disinfect and put a plaster on his knees. He wondered if Taeyeon would be angry. He had never seen Taeyeon angry before. Maybe she would be this time at him. He was sort of looking forward to it.

The nurse motioned for him to give her his hand and he complied, watching her unwind the bandage. He could see Onew also watching as it revealed his hand with a large stitched scar on it. He winced as the nurse turned his hand over and saw the grazed palm.

“What happened?” asked Onew.

“I fell,” said Taemin.

“How?” asked Onew again.

“Someone was chasing me.”

Onew frowned. Was Taemin being bullied?

“Who?”

Taemin didn’t reply and Onew didn’t press, but he didn’t like the fact that maybe someone was making Taemin feel uncomfortable. The whole staff had been briefed on Lee Taemin’s tragedy, and even though Taemin had swore at him, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the boy with such a large scar.

Taeyeon wasn’t mad. She was disappointed and confused but not mad. Taemin was also disappointed and confused.

“Why aren’t you mad at me?” he asked.

He had been suspended for 4 days. Also, the principal had told Taeyeon about his cutting class habit.

“Because I can’t be mad at you Taemin. I know you’re not a bad kid and I understand why you would want to wag and I wish you didn’t, but I don’t know why you had to break a window.”

He was disappointed in the lack of reaction from Taeyeon.

“My jeans are bloody too,” he added. Maybe Taeyeon would be angry at him for that.

“I’ll clean them for you baby,” she said. “What did Jinki do when this happened?”

“Jinki?”

“Oh, I mean Onew.”

Taeyeon knew his teacher? Taemin frowned.

“Nothing.”

“Is he nice to you?” she asked.

“I hate him,” he replied.

And Taemin was not happy.

Key didn’t come over tonight.

He dreamt that when Jonghyun had opened his hands and revealed the cricket, Taesun had appeared and knocked it out of his hands and told him to stop bothering his brother. Taemin still fell, but when he did, Taesun had asked him if he was okay.

When he threw the rock at the window his appa had looked out of the hole, confused, and had bought him to the principal’s office. There, his umma had put plasters on his knees and told him she would wash his jeans for him. And Taemin was happy.

Taemin woke up and hugged the spare pillow that Key slept on when he stayed the night.

He was jealous that the pillow had someone to hold it tightly.

A/N

Does anyone still feel sorry for Taemin even though he just yelled at Minho and Jonghyun, has become a regular smoker and broke a window at school? Does anyone feel sorry for Minho and Jonghyun or do you think they were mean? Taemin wants Taeyeon to be angry at him- I wonder why haha. And poor Onew! Double update tonight because I just handed in an assignment and my reward is that I can work on my fanfiction :')

And has any of you seen the transcript of the interview onew and taemin did on radio star or something? i haven't found a vid with eng subs yet but I have read the translation for some bits. Weeow, Taemin's loaded!! Very good. And popular with the ladies ever since he was little, knew it!! And Onew would rather have a girlfriend who smokes and cheats then swears? Oh dear, even my stories are filled with profanities, irl I swear even more. This is not too good haha! Do you mind the swearing in my stories? 

Quick, on to the next chapter! Thanks for reading this one, don't forget to tell me what you think! <3 <3